Humanism, Secularism, Feminism

Taslima Nasreen

Taslima Nasreen, an award-winning writer, physician, secular humanist and human rights activist, is known for her powerful writings on women oppression and unflinching criticism of religion, despite forced exile and multiple fatwas calling for her death. In India, Bangladesh and abroad, Nasreen’s fiction, nonfiction, poetry and memoir have topped the best-seller’s list.

Taslima Nasreen was born in Bangladesh. She started writing when she was 13. Her writings won the hearts of people across the border and she landed with the prestigious literary award Ananda from India in 1992. Taslima won The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought from the European Parliament in 1994. She received the Kurt Tucholsky Award from Swedish PEN, the Simone de Beauvoir Award and Human Rights Award from Government of France, Le Prix de l' Edit de Nantes from the city of Nantes, France, Academy prize from the Royal Academy of arts, science and literature from Belgium. She is a Humanist Laureate in The International Academy for Humanism,USA. She won Distinguished Humanist Award from International Humanist and Ethical Union, Free-thought Heroine award from Freedom From Religion foundation, USA., IBKA award, Germany,and Feminist Press Award, USA . She got the UNESCO Madanjeet Singh prize for Promotion of the Tolerance and Non-violence in 2005. She received the Medal of honor of Lyon. She got honorary citizenship from Paris, Nantes, Lyon, Metz, Thionville, Esch etc. Taslima was awarded the Condorcet-Aron Prize at the “Parliament of the French Community of Belgium” in Brussels and Ananda literary award again in 2000.

Bestowed with honorary doctorates from Gent University and UCL in Belgium, and American University of Paris and Paris Diderot University in France, she has addressed gatherings in major venues of the world like the European Parliament, National Assembly of France, Universities of Sorbonne, Oxford, Harvard, Yale, etc. She got fellowships as a research scholar at Harvard and New York Universities. She was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow in the USA in 2009.

Taslima has written 35 books in Bengali, which includes poetry, essays, novels and autobiography series. Her works have been translated in thirty different languages. Some of her books are banned in Bangladesh. Because of her thoughts and ideas she has been banned, blacklisted and banished from Bengal, both from Bangladesh and West Bengal part of India. She has been prevented by the authorities from returning to her country since 1994, and to West Bengal since 2007.

No no, Karen’s right. If we’re not serious all the time, misogynists won’t be able to sneer “humourless feminists” at us, hampering their ability to make an argument. Also, don’t shave your legs or armpits or I’ll have to take away your feminist card.

Karen, I would think the Danish Mohammed cartoon affair would clue you in on just how seriously people take cartoons. Only leftwingers and religiosu apologists in denial about the roots of violence in Mohammed/Islam itself really dismissed the bomb-turban cartoon out of hand.

If you want to claim Feminism is a human rights movement and there is no need for a men’s right movement because feminism is working on those issues, then you can’t ignore (and worse intentionally dismiss) the concerns of men.

What you are Taslima, what you always show yourself to be, is a damaged, very damaged individual.

I don’t think men are much threatened. But I am replying because you have the nerve to call Taslima Nasrin a ‘very damaged individual’ because you disagree with something she has to say (expressed as light and funny image macros). You are being ridiculous. I for one thing she does great work and I admire her stand and I admire her courage.

The ‘what about the menz’ is about is irritating as the ‘why isn’t there a white history month?’we get in the States.

First, it’s a total logic fail. If I’m doing something about some particular group, say, immigrants from Africa, this does not mean that I am unconcerned about everyone else, just that I’m focused on one particular group at present.

Second, women’s concerns and men’s concerns have not, historically, gotten equal billing. It’s like the history of gender based social concerns could be represented by the following lines of code:

for i in range(0,10000000):
print( “the menz”)
print(“women”)
print(“OMG what about the menz!”)

On cartoons, I tend to find that they work in a way that more formal appeals don’t. I think nothing is funny unless it’s true, and a lot of cartoons like these express a truth about the world in a memorable and sometimes unsettling way, so I’m all about the cartoons.

The older authority figure wins the trust of the young target by cultivating a false friendship, having heart-to-heart conversations, giving gifts, offering protection. And then the sex ensues, sometimes forced, sometimes seemingly consensual.

It is a classic predatory tactic known as “grooming,” and no one familiar with it could have been terribly surprised when a new report from the U.S. Department of Justice declared that young people in the country’s juvenile detention facilities are being victimized in just this way. The youngsters in custody are often deeply troubled, lacking parents, looking for allies. And the people in charge of the facilities wield great power over the day-to-day lives of their charges.

What was a genuine shock to many was the finding that in the vast majority of instances, it was female staff members who were targeting and exploiting the male teens in their custody.

I’d prefer that you don’t stigmatize the mentally ill further. Given the high % of people who would qualify for a DSM diagnosis of sorts, the vast majority of mentally ill people aren’t really up to anything criminal, beyond possibly speeding or other minor offenses. Also, the repeated failure of prolific criminals to be acquitted on psychiatric grounds shows that many of the worst offenders aren’t mentally il.

Second, yeah, it’s statistically unlikely that Random Guy is going to rape me, but the problem is there’s no real way to differentiate a potential rapist from just an ordinary guy. In fact, any successful rapist (or any other criminal) is probably going to look and act as much like a harmless, law-abiding citizen as possible. It’s kind of how if I see a person bleeding on the street, I don’t *know* if there is any chance of getting hepatitis from the blood, but we’d be prudent to take precautions. There are no clear warning signs that would differentiate blood with pathogens from other blood on sight.

So, what part of my caution around strange men are you going to take me to task for? For not wanting a strange guy I don’t know to “help me walk home” from a party? For not accepting a ride from someone? For not giving out my phone number? How would you want me to change my behavior? Not that I really want to know..

Ok, logically… what about the menz? If you’re so concerned, shouldn’t you be working on establishing shelters for abused men & breaking down patriarchal stereotypes that discourage victimized men from coming forward? No, that’s not your purpose. You don’t give an airborne rodent’s left testicle about all that. The only thing you care about is your precious, delicate fee-fees and throwing a tantrum about women being equally human.

That’s why we mock you, because “What about the Menz?” is unadulterated, hypocritical bullshit that’s as mature as a toddler screaming in the candy aisle, with no purpose other than to shut down discussion & understanding.

Activism should be present where activism is needed, and while I am usually against any kind of men’s rights organisations I am also usually against feminist organisations where I live (in other places, I recognize the need for feminist organizations because gross inequality exists; I am from USA). The purpose of both of these organization types seems outdated, as men and women are rather equal today. Most of the grievances proposed by “both sides” are individual cases, and while the cases should be corrected they don’t warrant any kind of action. These kind of cases are usually anomalies and don’t appear again afterwards due to their uncommon/rare status. Also, these cases usually can’t be prevented because prevention involves a literal restructuring of societal norms which is a bit difficult for an organization to achieve.

# 10 probably thinks men and women are equal because he is A MAN, and has NO idea what its like being female. Just because we aren’t being stoned to death in the streets doesn’t mean we are equal.
Pick up a book, look around, get a clue.

I really love how the men showed up to prove the durability and truth of the Meme. right on cue!

Thank you Taslima for making me laugh! You are so right-these “men’s rights activists” surely have their foot up their ass! It’s so typical that when women speak of important women’s issues affecting WOMEN, men come in and say..”duhhh-what about US?!” What about YOU? Ha! Guys, can you please temporarily pull your head out from your ass and realize that these are women’s issues, and they need to be addressed? Yes, aliens are not the ones raping women-MEN ARE!! Talk about DENIAL on men’s part. What shall it take for guys to realize that if they stopped raping women-THERE WOULD BE NO RAPE! Several, several years ago, feminist icon Andrea Dworkin asked for a “24 hour truce where there is NO RAPE.” Did she get your wish? Of course not. Taslima-please read about Andrea Dworkin..I think you’d really love her work, if you haven’t read about her already Women are constantly under siege in this world. We have to “be careful” of where we go, how we dress, what we say, how we breathe…Gee, we ARE human beings with feelings right? Anger is an emotion that I feel alot these days. I am very grateful for this, because years ago, I used to hurt MYSELF when I got angry. Me. Maybe because Joshua decided to call me a c**t, or because I was raped at age 20. Nowadays, I get in touch with my rage. I own it. I say what I feel needs to be said, and if people do not like it, they do not have to listen. Afterall, we live in na country that promotes “free speech” right?

Making fun of boys who are raped by men is not feminism. Mocking their suffering is not feminism either. All it’s doing it keeping them from reporting the abuse and adding to tally of young men who commit suicide (80 percent of suicides). Mocking the weakness of such males and thereby ignoring this critical issue is just more of the same kind of patriarchy, and BOTH sexes are perpetuating it.

Patriarchy affects both sexes. It’s time people of both sexes figured this out.